Presque vu LXIV

Nikita Lalwani‘s novel, Gifted, has won the inaugural Desmond Elliott prize.
The widely acclaimed debut novel about immigration and a precocious childhood, has been in contention for other literary prizes, but not won until now. The £10,000 winner’s cheque, will be donated, by the author, to human rights campaigners Liberty. Nikita Lalwani said:

“We live at a time when we can’t take personal freedoms and civil liberties for granted any more – in this country as in others – so an organisation which campaigns on these issues deserves our support.”

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Publishers Weekly reports that literary agent Barbara Bauer is suing 19 bloggers and websites, including Wikipedia, YouTube and AbsoluteWrite.com, claiming they are ruining her reputation.

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This one links to a story in the Guardian books page about a seemingly good and brave teacher and her persecution by a load of bloody fools.

The first story serves as a nice example of the consequences of the last story, don’t you think? Actually, both stories show the general contempt for education that is sadly common among large swathes of the American public.

As for the first story, I don’t know what’s worse: that the woman thought Europe was a country or that the host couldn’t even correctly pronounce an answer that was printed on a card in his hand (hun-ga-ry). Then again, the host is best known for his “You might be a redneck if…” stand up comedy routine, so expecting him to correctly pronounce relatively common dictionary words might be too much to ask.

jb says: Hi Shawn. I didn’t make the connection between the two stories. I just knew that something was terribly wrong. But I like synchronicity. Thanks for pointing it out.